How humans desire a tribal sense of belonging that is missing from modern life

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then came the buffalo hunters and they just killed them, for the cattle ranchers bounty, and didn't bother with the teepees.
 
It's funny how the myth of the North American Nirvana has grown. I have spoken to people who never considered that disease existed in North America before Europeans and that all disease came with them. The very fact that people populated the continent for tens of thousands of years without overpopulating is because disease ,starvation and killing one another kept the population stable. It doesn't excuse anything Europeans did, but Natives , themselves were capable of extreme cruelty. They too stripped areas bare of resources and we'll never know what the outcome may have been if they had had horses and gunpowder before Europeans - might have wiped each other out for all we know.
 
Just thinking about this thread as I work on hooking up the trailer plumbing this morning. It strikes me that living a solo nomadic life is the opposite of tribal living with group decisions and defense of territory.

Tribal instinct is related to herd instinct in animals (which we are). In herds of horses or elephants, for example, only the alpha stallions or bulls are allowed the prize - control over the herd of females. The remaining males have 3 options - to fight for a leader position, live in bachelor herds, never breeding or, if they are expelled from those herds to live a solitary existence.

Having lived with animals all my life, I firmly believe we come out the womb with our position in the herd/tribe already determined - like bees. In a litter of puppies just hours old it is already crystal clear which pup will grow to be a dominant dog.

Solitary nomadic life (along with other forms of remote living ), it seems, is composed primarily of people who have voluntarily expelled themselves from the herd. Coming together with others of a similar life choice is not so much tribal as it is a need to find comminality - just as a solitary wild horse may bond with another in a similar position and there is no leader in those pairings. Being solitary my entire life, I do find myself gravitating to others who have similarly expelled themselves.
 
jeez it wasn't a bounty by the cattle ranchers that decimated the Bison. it was the fact that you could get a dollar a hide on the open market, back then there was a huge demand for leather. hunters made a living hunting bison. they almost hunted them into extinction. feral horses do have a leader the alpha male is the leader of the heard. that doesn't mean the heard will always be in one group but they are close by. close by for a horse could mean a couple of miles. highdesertranger
 
The bounty on Bison was actually a part of the plan the US Army had for combatting the Natives
Remember that the Native American's whole way of life (at least those we were fighting) depended heavily on Bison
Kill off the Bison, you're disrupting the Native's 'supply lines'
Mankind is a tribal creature, pointing to the loners as 'proof otherwise' is like saying all Fords are junk based on 10 individual vehicles
How do you guys think People Farming works?
 
ArtW said:
Mankind is a tribal creature, pointing to the loners as 'proof otherwise' is like saying all Fords are junk based on 10 individual vehicles

As a whole, yes, but it's the exceptions that prove the rule. There is no such thing as 100% of anything. There are a bazillion combinations of genes and life experiences that can cause one to veer away from the rule. I don't take exception to the term 'abnormal'. If the term means outside of the way 99.9% of the world appears to feel comfortable with then, bring it on
 
highdesertranger said:
  it was the fact that you could get a dollar a hide on the open market,  
Who is to say that if Native Americans had a market for the hides they wouldn't have done the same. History is full of cases of native people who decimated the things needed for survival - The people of Easter Island come to mind, and it is believed that the Pueblo tribes caused their own demise by overusing natural resources and warfare.
 
IanC said:
Who is to say that if Native Americans had a market for the hides they wouldn't have done the same. History is full of cases of native people who decimated the things needed for survival - The people of Easter Island come to mind, and it is believed that the Pueblo tribes caused their own demise by overusing natural resources and warfare.

Quite a few 'tribes' are doing that very thing as we speak
BIG tribes :)
 
Sameer said:
What Bob is speaking about is our common behavior as human-beings.  As we evolved and migrated we had common behaviors.  This is supported by a Anthropological history supported by Archeological evidence.  The stories told around the campfires in the America's would be similar to the stories told around the campfires in the caves at Altamira and Lascaux, France.  Those stories would have been creation myths and legends.  The paleo-indian migration from Asia took place some 40,000 to 16,000 years ago  Humans walked here across the Bering Strait land bridge.  Before that their were no humans in the Americas.  Our behavior as humans as we  evolved from nomadic behavior to creating permanent settlements is the same everywhere in the world.    A great book to read is Jacob Bronowski's 'The Ascent of Man'

thats theory based on the very little fact that we have,science and archeology love to pass and teach their theories off as fact
 
ummm
buffalo09.jpg



have a couple buffalo herds where i live,they seem to be doing fine
 
if you guys havent noticed there are many different types of people,there are plenty of sheeple out there.
the way i like to explain it is
"yall are dogs and like to pack up,i'm a cat, sorry not coming to the party"
 
Gary68 said:
ummm
buffalo09.jpg



have a couple buffalo herds where i live,they seem to be doing fine

Gary68
What's the story of all the trucks? 
I was just thinking that would be a really nice picture if it didn't have the trucks , maybe trees instead.
 
Those caught up in the bloody conflict in Bosnia often say they were happier during the war. The reason, they say, was they all pulled together, felt connected and part of something bigger than themselves.

I think that's a key in this. We have been told many times "beware of these or those people"...The friction between races, creeds and religions now have brought us to this point where we trust no one, not even our best friends...
 
You deleted my posts referring to sporting events as analogous to belonging to a tribe? And yet you allowed all the buffalo posts. WTF??
 
I think times of tragedy bring people together for a common cause. When you are scared, you want help.
The last time I went back to where I grew up, I wondered where was everybody. It was like a ghost town. Everybody locked inside with netflix or some other cable addiction. My parents were older, we would often play cards with the neighbors. Not so much of that goes on any more. You don't know the neighbor, and really don't care to.

People with a common interest tend to bind together a bit closer. I think that we fit into that sort of category. For whatever the twist and turn of life brought us to wheels or camping we are all here.
 
We're more a birds of a feather thing but tribe sounds so cool !
Labels can be so vague !

I don't see Bob as a chief , just a great guy sharing and enjoying his new life with other like minded friends.
Long live CRVL ! The real chief is the group itself.
 
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